Isotely and Coralsnakes. 21 



nearly to tlie abdomen; tlie areas of tlie patches are dull red; 

 interstices white. 



D. doliatus coccineus, Florida. The blotches have burst so as 

 to form scaiiet and black rings with yellow interstitial rings. 



Nearly a dozen varieties have been described, The ouly reasonable 

 way is to group them into a few variable species, and these show 

 the unmistakable tendency to become more brilliantly and sharply 

 ringed from North to South. For instance the typical 0. doliatus, 

 from Maryland into Texas, is dull red, likewise as var. gentüis in 

 Arkansas; as var. anmdata it is bright red in Southern Texas 

 whence it ranges into Nuevo Leon and further South, but in the 

 rest of Mexico, and thence into South America, it continues as 

 Ophibolus s. Coronella micropholis. 



The most brilliant Coronellas occur in the hot and moist regions 

 from Florida into Texas, as C. coccinea, C. elapsoidea and Cemophora. 

 But the C. coccinea has been found also at Fort Union in New Mexico ; 

 and C. doliata var. syspila ranges from Indiana to Apache in Arizona. 



Peculiar distribution prevails in the Sonoran region. From Fort 

 Whipple, near Prescott in Arizona, have been returned: Elaps eury- 

 xanthus, Coronella pyromelanus ^. zonata (California to Arizona) ; Bhino- 

 chilus lecontei (from Kansas to Mazatlan). At Fort Union in New 

 Mexico occur Coronella coccinea^ C. pyromelanus and almost certainly 

 R. lecontei, but not Elaps. 



The most significant fact is that specimens of Coronella with 

 fully developed tricoloured ringed dress occur so far North as Mary- 

 land, Indiana, Kansas, even Nebraska, in some instances at least 

 400 miles beyond the nearest possible Station of Elaps. The latter 

 is alleged to have been found as far north as Ohio, and it has been 

 suggested that this snake has made its way up up the Valley of 

 the Mississippi. Even if true, this would not aifect the following 

 consideration. It cannot be seriously thought of that Coronellas, 

 having acquired their beautiful garb in the South and having there 

 found it useful as humbugs, have then spread north wards, carrying 

 their fame with them. Even the more serious alternative cannot 

 be entertained, that Elaps may have withdrawn from an originally 

 more northern ränge, but leaving its fame behind. We do not 

 know the geological age of Elaps, but it is certainly an arrival, 

 not only in North- but also in Central America, after the Separation 

 of the Antilles in postmiocene times. It entered the New World 

 neither by the proverbial route of Behring's Strait, nor from Africa, 



